18 Booklist August2017 www.booklistreader.com
pace, Kiernan follows the lives of both
Vanderbilt fortune heir George and his future wife, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser, who,
after George’s death in 1914 from a pulmonary embolism, dealt with Biltmore through
WWI and the Depression. Kiernan lavishes
attention not only on the house, made up of
250 rooms and covering four acres, but also
on the forestry school designed to revive the
over-logged landscape, the Arts and Crafts
movement that grew up in Asheville under
Edith’s influence, and the many visitors to
the estate, including Edith Wharton and
Henry James. The story of the house, which
now survives on the money of tourists, may
not be suspenseful, but the many diverting
detours Kiernan takes make the book enticing for even those who will never set foot on
Biltmore grounds. —Margaret Quamme

The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas II andthe Russian Revolution.

By Robert Service.

Sept. 2017. 390p. illus. Pegasus, $29.95

(9781681775012). 947.08.

Service is known for biographies of Lenin,
Stalin, and Trotsky. Now, he documents the
last months of Nicholas II, the tsar held accountable by the Bolsheviks for inflicting
hardship on millions of Russians before the
revolution. Service brings forensic detail to his
account of the Romanov family’s confinement
and murder, mining newly available material
that gives the story a you-are-there quality. It
can be a tough read. Not only was Nicholas’

family annihilated, other Romanovs all over
Russia were brutally dispatched. One group
of men and women was flung down a 60-foot
mine shaft and left to die, a warmup for the
Bolsheviks’ consolidation of power by exterminating their enemies. Service weaves in
threads of humanity: Nicholas, a disastrous
ruler and anti-Semite, was a devoted father
who made the captive hours pass by reading
The Hound of the Baskervilles to his family.
There are even heroes, such as lawyer Nikolai
Sokolov, who smuggled proof of the murders to the West, ensuring that the world will
never forget this horrifying piece of history.
—Mary Ann Gwinn

One Long Night: A Global History ofConcentration Camps.

By Andrea Pitzer.

Sept. 2017. 384p. Little, Brown, $30 (9780316303590).

940.53.

Pitzer acknowledges that mass incarceration
of various groups is an ancient practice but
views the modern concentration camp as a
product of developments that made it possible
for governments to gather information and
employ methods of tight control to confine
great numbers of “innocent people without
resort to judicial processes.” Pitzer (The Secret
History of Vladimir Nabokov, 2013) begins her
thoroughly researched and unflinching history
in 1890s Cuba, where Spanish general Vale-riano Weyler confined thousands of suspected
or even potential rebel sympathizers in brutal,
disease-ridden compounds, where many died.

She then proceeds across time and around
the globe to examine not only the infamous
Nazi and Soviet camps but also such lesser-known and smaller-scale mass detentions as
the roundup of Dutch-speaking civilians by
British authorities in South Africa during the
Boer War and the detainment of German and
Austrian aliens living in the United Kingdom
during WWII. Pitzer clearly regards concentration camps as inherently evil, a perspective
put to the test given current religion-based
terrorism. An informative and unsettling survey of the abuses states can inflict on targeted
groups. —Jay Freeman

Sargent’s Women: Four Livesbehind the Canvas.

By Donna M. Lucey.

Aug. 2017. 320p. illus. Norton, $29.95 (9780393079036).
920.72.

Lucey’s fascination with the Gilded Age
did not end with the completion of her
best-selling Archie and Amélie (2006); it intensified as she considered the work of John

Singer Sargent, a painter of “uncanny insight”
whom she views as possibly hisera’s “greatest
chronicler.” Choosing four striking Sargent
portraits of wealthy, cosmopolitan American women, Lucey vividly reveals the hidden
truths of their tumultuous lives, while also
succinctly telling the artist’s
own intriguing story. Archie
Chanler’s sister Elizabeth
was 27 when Singer painted
her in 1893, capturing the
banked fury and passion
of this kind and dignified
woman, who seemed destined for spinsterhood until
she embarked on a life-altering affair with
her best friend’s husband. Elisa Palmer was
another underestimated poor-little-rich-girl
navigating a complicated life. Boston Brahmin Lucia Fairchild worshipped Sargent,
became an artist, and supported her feckless
husband while she struggled with multiple
sclerosis. Lucey’s portrait of “mercurial” and
“brazen” Isabella Stewart Gardner, the best
known of the quartet, is as fresh and revelatory as Sargent’s scandalous painting as she
recounts Gardner’s zeal for art collecting and
her unique home museum. Lucey’s superlative group portrait, rendered in crystal-clear
prose, is spring-fed by her immersion in vast
archives of letters and diaries, her pilgrimages to the extraordinary places that shaped
her subjects’ lives, and her keen insights into
what drove these women to break out of their
gilded cages. —Donna Seaman

The Shadow in the Garden: ABiographer’s Tale.

By James Atlas.

Aug. 2017. 400p. illus. Pantheon, $28.95
(9781101871690). 920.073.

How did an unproven writer in his twenties become the biographer of poet and writer
Delmore Schwartz? And how did he then
muster the temerity and resilience to write

The U.S. was transformed greatly over
the course of the nineteenth century due
to factors such as territorial expansion,
industrialization, and immigration. Interior-designer Greene details the changing face
of America through the architectural lens
of its buildings and landmarks from the

1800s. Each entry includes an introduc-tion, description, key statistics, and anexplanation of significance. Subjects rangefrom the Statue of Liberty to the ErieCanal to Vanderbilt’s Breakers. Greene’sexamination of 45 buildings and landmarksprovides an interesting angle for viewingnineteenth-century American history. Alarger supply of images (one per entry isincluded), preferably in color, would havebeen beneficial. Nonetheless, this bookis well suited for undergraduate studentsand general readers interested in U.S. his-tory and architecture. —Jim Frutchey

Between Twitter, Reddit, Snapchat,
Facebook, Tumblr, and more, social media
has permanently changed the way we
interact with each other and information.
Here, Burns dives headfirst into the ever-changing landscape of social media with
five sections: “Background and History”;
“Problems, Controversies and Solutions”;
“Perspectives”; “Profiles”; and “Data and
Documents.” Although each chapter could
be its own book, the individual sections
provide a good overview, and with the
references and resources included, there’s
plenty of opportunity to delve deeper into
additional information. Though this may
become outdated due to the subject matter, it is still an extensive, well-researched
offering on a very current and hot topic.
—Erin Linsenmeyer